Article excerpt

The "Capitol Business" column by William O. Pitts in the March 15
issue of The Journal Record on the Environmental Audit Privilege Act
was biased, slanted, inaccurate and generally sorry journalism. I
take issue with it in virtually all regards.

To begin with, the objections voiced by the attorney general's
office were not "quickly raised." We raised the same objections when
this bill was last considered by the Legislature two years ago:
Specifically, the thrust of the bill was to allow polluting
industries to withhold information that potentially endangered the
public and to escape sanctions for damaging the environment. I
expressed those concerns to the Senate author and agreed to work
with
him to draft a version of the bill that met the expressed aims of
the
bill without jeopardizing the public.

My first question was "who wants this bill?" The answer given
initially was that our public utilities wanted it. I suggested then
that the bill be written only to apply to public utilities. That was
rejected.
My next question was "what problem are we trying to solve here?"
The answer was to relieve business of vexatious lawsuits by private
citizens -- that state agencies were not the problem. I suggested
then that the bill be written only to apply to public utilities.
That was rejected.
I then asked for examples of vexatious lawsuits that had been
filed. None were offered.
Contrary to Pitts' assertion, I never consulted with trial lawyers
on this bill -- not as a group nor with any individual trial lawyer.
The AG is not anti big business -- another of Pitts' bald
assertions. We declined to join the Justice Department in its
lawsuits against Koch Industries -- twice. We struggled to settle
pollution damage claims against Simmons over discharges into the
waters of northeastern Oklahoma in order to avoid lawsuits, and were
successful. To date we have not filed a single action against a
public utility or oil company over spills or discharges. To the
contrary, we have worked with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission,
the Water Resources Board, the Wildlife Department, and the
Department of Environmental Quality to resolve claims of
environmental damage in a cooperative manner to the maximum extent
possible. …